TT Report, Day 6: So-So SOS

This has got to be the least safe campsite I've ever chosen.

Everyone who hears you're going to bike Tasmania says "look out for the logging trucks." They're heavy, they can't brake for shit, and that makes the drivers reckless. So the edge of a logging road is world-class stupid.

But look at that picture and tell me where else I’m supposed to pitch my tent. Apart from the road, there is no level ground. The edge of the road is the best I could find on short notice. And by short I mean right fucking now. I know the symptoms of hypothermia, and they're tapping me on the shoulder saying go ahead, take your time, see what happens.

The safest I can make this site is to clip my headlight and taillight on the tent and put them on flashing mode. At least the logging trucks will see something weird before they hit it.

But luck is with me: the dry bag stayed dry. The sleeping bag will do its job, and so will my winter clothes. So soon enough I'm dried off, bundled up, and out of the wind, and that means life is good.

Life is okay.

Life is.

Yeah, that’s about the best I can say for it in the moment. Life continues. I'm not going to freeze to death. Life is continuing not to freeze to death.

Which pretty much means I have to hit that SOS button. It’s a tough decision. On the one hand, I don’t feel threatened by anything. On the other, this is a textbook rescue situation. In ten minutes I will have eaten every scrap of food I have. I’ve got about 200 mL of water left, minus whatever evaporated off when I was boiling it to pour into a Nalgene bottle to restore sensation to my frozen feet. This is super gross but I’ve been pissing into the bladder of my water filter, hoping like hell that I’ll never have to drink it. I think as a general rule of thumb, anybody who is contemplating drinking their own urine is in need of assistance.

So I hit the button.

Take a wild guess how well the technology works.

After an hour of no response I hit the cancel button. I don’t think I’ll need help until morning, and it’s safer for the rescue workers to operate by daylight. The next morning, coming down off the mountain and into cell range, my phone blows up. Four texts on the PLB’s app, asking the nature of my emergency. Then a missed call from the global “rescue” company, whose voicemail message really should have said “we don’t know why we’re calling, because if you had cell service you wouldn’t need us at all.”

Apparently the device works just fine behind the scenes. The same operator called my sister, who is my emergency contact, to ask if she’d heard from me. Who, I ask you, who hits the SOS button and then calls their sister?!?

But all’s well that ends well. Sometime around sunrise the clouds cleared enough that my phone got just enough signal to call 000, which is 911 down here. Also, down here you have to write zeros in the opposite direction. In a couple of hours there was a police helicopter hovering over my tent, guiding a 4x4 up the hairiest stretch of the Jefferys Track. Booster went on the roof, I went in the back, and we only got stuck once on the way down.

Then, and I swear this is true, the “rescue” company called my sister to tell her I was in police custody.

(ETA: I’ve done a little research. First, my SOS beacon did work, it’s just the app that didn’t. Which on my end is basically the same thing, but on their end they did know where I was and that I was in a tight spot. Second, don’t try to filter your own pee. It doesn’t work. I looked it up. All the stuff your body wanted to get rid of is too small for the filter to screen out.)